San Diego Comic-Con’s New ‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 Trailer Pops the Lid on Pocket Universe Madness

At San Diego Comic-Con, HBO Max unveiled a new trailer for the second season of DC Studios’ series, Peacemaker, starring John Cena.

The brand-new Peacemaker trailer arrives two months after DC Studios teased fans with an initial teaser. In the teaser trailer, we saw Peacemaker being interrogated by Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), and Hawk Girl (Isabela Merced). Peacemaker’s cameo in Superman, DC Studios’ summer blockbuster, highlights his role as DC Studios’ resident anti-hero and serves as a connection between the original and rebooted cinematic universes. This unique position places him in an interesting limbo that the upcoming second season appears eager to explore.

Although the world may not recognize them as genuine heroes—likely overshadowed by the headline-grabbing heroism of Smallville’s caped superhero—Peacemaker and his gang have a mountain of trouble ahead that they need to sort out. Mostly caused by Chris himself deciding to see how the other half lives… the other half being a whole other dimension where Peacemaker is a way more popular hero.

Key among those issues aside from that is Peacemaker’s long-awaited confrontation with Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) on account of killing his son in The Suicide Squad and a confrontation with himself, literally, when the other Peacemaker discovers that Chris is mooching off of his life and dimension. That just goes to show that folks have to stop messing around with pocket universes. Listen to Mr. Terrific!

The forthcoming second season of Peacemaker was announced in February of 2022. At the time, and especially following the cataclysmic conclusion of Superman, its positioning as DC Studios’ next big thing raises several questions about how it’ll address what director, writer, and DC Studios head James Gunn will carry over from its first season and what won’t. Fortunately, Gunn provided some insight into what fans can expect ahead of Peacemaker’s second season and how its hero’s pocket universe gate compares to Lex Luthor’s.

“Lex’s version is much jankier than the one in Peacemaker. The one in Peacemaker works better. What the whole season of Peacemaker revolves around is that,” Gunn told Entertainment Weekly.

He continued: “I think of Peacemaker as more of a high-concept story about one other world. It’s more akin to Philip Roth’s [1996 novel] The Counterlife than it is to the third Spider-Man movie [2021’s No Way Home]… I love that movie, but it isn’t about that. It isn’t Deadpool & Wolverine. It’s really a very simple, simple story about [Chris’] relationship to this one other world.”

Fans can look forward to finding out firsthand what lies in store when Peacemaker season two premieres on HBO Max on August 21.

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